Americans tend to ignore foreign policy. Living in a continent-sized nation bounded by two vast oceans allows for that dangerous self-deception. But when we\u2019re attacked or the price of gas spikes, we\u2019re rudely reminded that while we may not care about the world, the world cares for us.<\/p>\n
Why did President Donald Trump order an attack on Iran? Two reasons: because we had to and because we had the ability to achieve victory.<\/p>\n
The Islamic Republic of Iran has been a problem for the U.S. since President Jimmy Carter encouraged the fall of the shah in 1979. Carter was worried about human rights. If only he knew the horrors his actions would unleash.<\/p>\n
The pattern of Iranian aggression began in 1979, when revolutionaries seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. This act of war humiliated the United States and established Tehran\u2019s playbook: terrorism, defiance and impunity. Four years later, Iran backed nascent militant group Hezbollah\u2019s suicide bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, which killed 241 U.S. service members on a peacekeeping mission in the deadliest single-day loss for the Corps since Iwo Jima. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) trained and armed the attackers, yet the regime faced no serious consequences.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s support for deadly proxies includes Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, and Shia militias in Iraq and Syria. They act as Tehran\u2019s forward bases, attacking U.S. forces and allies with funding, weapons and direction from Iran. During the extended conflict and occupation of Iraq, Iranian-supplied penetrators \u2014 sophisticated improvised explosive devices \u2014 killed or wounded hundreds of American troops, with estimates of more than 600 U.S. deaths attributable to Iranian-backed attacks.<\/p>\n
Closer to home, Iran conducts illegal operations on U.S. soil, including cyberespionage, assassination plots and attempts to smuggle agents across our borders. FBI warnings about Iranian sleeper cells are based on years of intelligence.<\/p>\n
Globally, Iran aids Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine by supplying Shahed drones \u2014 cheap, deadly \u201ckamikaze\u201d weapons that mostly kill and maim Ukrainian civilians while draining Western resources.<\/p>\n
With China\u2019s help, Iran has been rapidly expanding its ballistic missile arsenal, improving guidance and production with the intent to create an overwhelming offensive capability \u2014 before that plan was interrupted by joint U.S. and Israeli action.<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s Iran\u2019s nuclear weapons program. Iran has amassed about a ton of highly enriched uranium \u2014 material with no credible civilian use. While June\u2019s Operation Midnight Hammer interrupted Iranian progress toward a larger nuclear stockpile, its existing stocks of 60% enriched uranium were merely weeks away from purification to weapons grade.<\/p>\n
Why now? While Iran\u2019s ballistic missile and nuclear programs were rapidly advancing, so, too, were U.S. capabilities in a changing world.<\/p>\n
What once demanded hundreds of thousands of ground troops \u2014 such as the forces assembled for Desert Storm from 1990 to 1991\u2014 can now be accomplished through precision air power. Advances in guided munitions, drones and intelligence enable rapid strikes with accuracy measured in mere feet, dismantling missile sites, command centers and leadership swiftly.<\/p>\n
Crucially, the Iranian people themselves can serve as the decisive force on the ground. Widespread discontent, fueled by repression, economic failure, corruption and protests over rights and shortages, has eroded regime loyalty. Unlike more cohesive dictatorships, Iran\u2019s youth, middle class and ethnic minorities \u2014 Persians number less than 50% in a nation with seven major ethnic groups \u2014 are primed to rise once air power shatters the mullahs\u2019 control.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s decision to eliminate a growing threat might also achieve lasting strategic results for American national security \u2014 the collapse of Iran\u2019s ayatollahs will rank with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union two years later.<\/p>\n
Had action been deferred, Iran\u2019s rapidly increasing ballistic missile would have soon reached the point of immunity \u2014 erecting a shield of threatened destruction behind which the mullah\u2019s nuclear program could be rebuilt.<\/p>\n
Iran has a long and proud history. But the past 47 years under theocratic rule have been an aberration that\u2019s held the region \u2014 and the world \u2014 hostage to violence, chaos and threats.<\/p>\n